Chapter 26: What Goes Around Comes Around

It took about a month for my lawyer and the detective to uncover all the dirty secrets about Elizabeth and Alex's accident and the fallout there from. They found out about what the trucking company had pulled in order to avoid bad publicity. There were quite a few skeletons in their closet.

1- They knew that their driver had been on the road for 15 hours straight.

2- They conspired with the DA and the police department to burry the investigation.

3- They had an employee covertly pay the hospital bills in untraceable cash.

4- They got the parents bodies released to them and had them buried in an unmarked grave.

5- They bribed the head of DSS to get Tracy and Alex separately placed in foster homes.

6- They paid off the truck driver and moved him to a secret location with a new name.

7- They bought and paid for all of the photos taken by news reporters.

8- They paid the reporters to drop the whole story.

9- They launched a false advertising campaign claiming their on-time and safety record.

10- They even forged some documents allowing them to sell the Wallace's house.

11- They took possession of the Wallace's car and destroyed the contents.

All in all, they had orchestrated a cover up of monumental proportions. Criminal charges against the company and the bribed officials would total up to a lifetime in prison and fines equal to budget of a small country. News of what they all had done hit the network national news and all the parties involved were barraged by investigative reporters from coast to coast. Every day, for a while, the story got bigger and bigger until the news announcers treated it as a national disgrace. Congress and the Interstate Commerce Commission launched their own investigations. Almost every night the news reported on new discoveries of the despicable acts everyone involved had performed. Even the US President and Governor appeared on TV saying they were disgusted with what had been done and promised that the full weight of the federal and state laws would be levied upon the perpetrators. Arrest warrants were issued for every one of the persons involved and they were incarcerated without bail pending the trials.

Well, the trucking company ended up not avoiding publicity and, instead, ended up front and center in bad publicity as their dirty laundry was aired. Their stock on the market took a plunge that would make 1920 stock market crash look like a minor bump in the road. There was a plethora of charges and lawsuits filed in various courts.

Without going into a case by case narrative the bottom line was that both Elizabeth and Alex ended up with over a million dollars each. They got their parents remains dug up and reburied in marked graves after a well attended funeral service. The perpetrators were all sentenced to the maximum sentences and likely will die of old age in prison.

One good thing to come out of all this chaos was that the DSS worker who had handled Cathy and Sally's cases was not found to have done anything wrong and with her pristine record was even promoted to head up the DSS office since the previous department head was incarcerated.

Last but not least, the trucking company was one of my customers who had paid ahead for tracking products and software, of which, they had yet to take delivery. The trucking company lost their ICC license and declared bankruptcy. The court, in light of the circumstances, advised me that they had no intention of recouping the money paid to my company.

The name of my company was paid so much national exposure it resulted in a virtual flood of orders from customers from coast to coast. We had to hire a whole staff of new employees and construct our own manufacturing facility. All of our existing employees were moved into executive positions and paid very well in addition to their part ownership of the company.

And just to think, if that naked little girl had not chosen my door none of this would have happened. As Maurice Chevalier sang 'Thank heavens for little girls.'